I wanted to doodle something truly magical for the Daily Planet segment, so I was delighted to find – as I pored over my ‘inspirations’ map of Victoria – a hat that looked remarkably like a certain Tolkien wizard’s. From there, I worked my way down to flesh out the rest of the details.

Completing my GPS doodle of Gandalf required 168 kilometres (105 miles) of cycling – 88 km (55 mi) on roads and pathways directly in the doodle, and another 80 km (50 mi) of pedalling to “connect the dots” for the straight lines of Gandalf’s staff and a few other details for which suitable roads simply didn’t exist.

My city-sized portrait of Gandalf the Grey Wizard from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings all began with a simple inspiration – a wizard’s hat – that I found in the city map